Control yourself! 4 practical steps to master your emotions and become a better leader 

Are you an internalizer or externalizer?

‘Emotional types’ typically respond to stressors in different ways:

• Internalizers tend to suppress their feelings and focus on particular things, avoiding distractions.
• Externalizers express their emotions more intensely and openly, switching their attention easily from one thing to another.

Four techniques to optimize behavior self-regulation

1. Modify the stressor

Begin by identifying the situations or stressors that trigger your emotional response and figure out why.

• Externalizer: What causes you stress? Is it the fear that you might be unable to answer difficult questions and appear incompetent in a presentation? Are you worried about potential conflict with colleagues?

Modification: Invite someone closer to the project in hand, perhaps with more technical knowledge, to co-present. To diffuse potential conflict with colleagues, meet over lunch rather than the office.

• Internalizer: Are you stressed about a meeting or debrief because of the potential for misunderstanding?

Modification: Bring a trusted colleague into the mix; someone who finds it easier to say, “I feel excited / worried about this”, giving you the cue to express how you feel. Re-routing a meeting from the office to the canteen might also help you be more open.

2. Suppress the response

Think about how you typically respond in a difficult situation, then do something that elicits an entirely different response.

• Externalizer: Find ways to dial down your emotional response before it happens.

Tip: Meditation, breathing exercises, and calming music help you exercise greater control and dial down your emotions.

• Internalizer: Rather than shutting down, dial up your emotional response.

Tip: Hit the gym or listen to rousing music before the meeting.

3. Interrupt the response

In a stressful situation, find a way to stop your behavior in its tracks and reset how you feel.

Tips

• Distract yourself: look at a different area of the room and focus on a friendly face, or press your fingertips into the palms of your hands for five seconds.
• Suggest a quick three-minute recess and get a glass of water.
• Conjure an amusing thought or image (but don’t lose your train of thinking).

4. Control your emotions

Still struggling to control your habitual emotional response? Give yourself breathing space to impose a more rational one.

Tips

• Create a response routine. If you’re being asked complex questions, instead of defaulting to anxiety or irritation, ask the other person, “What do you think?” or “What do we need to do next?” This will give you space you to rein in your feelings.
• Counterbalance: whatever your instinctive response is, do something that counteracts it.